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itwbennett writes "Contrary to recent reports, data broker Acxiom is not planning to give consumers access to all the information they've collected on us. That would be too great a challenge for the giant company, says spokesperson Alexandra Levy. Privacy blogger Dan Tynan recently spoke with Jennifer Barrett Glasgow, Chief Privacy Officer at Acxiom (she claims to be the very first CPO) about how the company collects information and what they do with it. This should give you some small measure of comfort: 'We don't know that you bought a blue shirt from Lands End. We just know the kinds of products you are interested in. We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do,' says Glasgow."

Are they doing business in the EU? If so, they may have to.
I can't be bothered to look it up right now, but there was a case of a student from Vienna forcing facebook to give their users full access to whatever information they had collected on them. Impossible to tell of course, whether they did fully comply.
Still, that might be funny.

Thanks buddy, now you've got She Don't Use Jelly [youtube.com] stuck in my head. Since I have to sleep shortly, I'm probably going to have jacked up dreams. Yes, I'm "old" for this, but damnit, I've earned it. In retort, I'll see your Flaming Lips and raise you a Mexican Radio [youtube.com].

Recently I needed a car tow on the weekend. It took me about two and a half hours to get home. When I arrived I immediately went to send out email and I was getting targeted adds for used Mercedes cars and auto loans. They don't need to bother implanting a tracking chip. It would be redundant.

This. I worked with JP Morgan Chase for a brief stint and they sent us to Acxiom for week-long training on how they do data collection and what we could do with it. One of the stories they shared was how if a product was purchased at a Disney store and that same account had previous purchases for children's toys, then we could correlate that account with an address and send the address an offer for a Disney-branded Visa or Mastercard. If I remember right there were over 500 data points on households, not including transaction histories.

I hate to respond to my own comment and I know this is blatently trollish, but incase you're wondering, Marketwatch [marketwatch.com] reports that Facebook recently partnered with Acxiom "to enable marketers to incorporate off-Facebook purchasing data in order to deliver more relevant ads to users".

Send a cheque or postal order with the order or in settlement of the account.

The last time I checked, eBay specifically forbade using a cheque or postal order to pay for an item that a buyer has bought. Which existing major online stores do allow using a cheque or postal order?

We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do

I like to have my privacy respected. I've willingly shared this information with Acxiom, but apparently my primary interest isn't valuable for Acxiom to understand. Companies like Acxiom deserve to have their corporate systems pillaged and this data handed out willy nilly to whomever the pillagers associate with.. without recrimination. Because this is PRECISELY how Acxiom operates.

If our political systems weren't so ridiculously corrupt, Acxiom's board and upper management would have been against the wall long ago. It's about time that companies like Acxiom were targetted by righteous hackers and their corrupt business practices exposed for the entire world to see.

The USA isn't the only country capable of reaching outside of its borders to enforce its laws. Whether they've actually got the balls (bollocks) to act is another question. And if the UK files charges and the USA refuses to extradite, just don't travel to the EU. Or fly from Seatte to New York and cross through Canadian airspace.

I was wondering about this too, by Lands End I'm assuming she means the actual place Lands End in the UK? If so then again this seems to be yet another company breaking UK law on data collection and not a thing being done about it.

It's worth noting that it's not simply a breach of the point in law you say - the right to be able to access this data, but also that as a 3rd party company with whom you have no business then they have absolutely no legal right to be holding this data in the first place. It's tru

FTA: "Acxiom data can’t be used for employment background checks, credit verification, or insurance underwriting, she adds, because that would make it a consumer reporting company under Fair Credit Report Act. Companies regulated under the FCRA can’t use that data for marketing purposes."

Urm, "Chinese walls", anyone? Want to bet that they don't sell that information to other people for doing exactly that?

I can tell you at least one company uses this same sort of purchase data from an Acxiom competitor which correlate to relatively poor credit scores (low-end purchases paid by cash, check or store credit card as an example) in order to send offers with the explicit goal of getting them to sign up for credit. Bad credit scores result in hefty interest and big fees. They tap dance around the FCRA in order to avoid having to deal with compliance and having to fully disclose the data they collect.

If you cannot tell people exactly what data you have collected about them, you are not allowed to collect that data. Penalties up to 2 years imprisonment apply. (Well, it is Europe, so I doubt anybody has been sent to prison yet for breach of data privacy laws, but still....) And they would also have to delete any and all data on request from the people that data is about. Cannot do it? Sorry, your business Model is criminal.

We're trying to get a reasonably complete picture of your household and what the individuals who live there like to do

My name is Anonymous Coward. We here in the Coward family like to live our lives knowing companies like yours do not have any information about us other than, of course, the fact that we don't like companies like yours do not have any information about us.

I interned at Acxiom during my senior year of undergrad so I thought I'd give another view and share a funny story.

If I remember correctly, their revenue is broken down roughly like the following: 60% - data analysis of 3rd party data, even big name tech companies (Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc) will send them data to analyze because its cheaper and/or easier
30% - data storage, they store 3rd party data on tape in a fire and water safe bunkers (no joke)